"We had another strong quarter, wrapping up a great year. I am particularly pleased with our performance in priority areas including security, data center switching, collaboration, services as well as our overall performance, with revenues up 2% in Q4 excluding the SP Video CPE business," said Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco. "We continue to execute well in a challenging macro environment. Despite slowing in our Service Provider business and Emerging Markets after three consecutive quarters of growth, the balance of the business was healthy with 5% order growth. This growth and balance demonstrates the strength of our diverse portfolio. Our product deferred revenue from software and subscriptions grew 33% showing the continued momentum of our business model transformation."

Reports earlier this week had the networking giant cutting as much as 14,000 jobs. Others have speculated Cisco would make a sizable cut in its workforce this year giving its growing stable of acquisitions and its shifting software emphasis. Cisco has acquired 15 companies under CEO Chuck Robbins tenure, which is now early into its second year.

Most recently the company bought cloud security firm CloudLock; other cloud-based technology from Synata; network semiconductor technology from Leaba and Software as a Service (SaaS) provider Jasper.

In recent history– the year end earnings report which is expected today -- hasn’t been kind to Cisco employees. The company has laid off a little over 11,000 employees total in late summer reductions since 2012.

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